Bredin on Running & Training

176 RUNNING AND TRAINING. runner Cullum, over a similar distance-which the latter won in two minutes on a very windy day-1 was far from running badly, a few days before the event having run a trial in I min. 57~ sees. on a slower track, which I have little doubt cost me the race. I was then training at Southport and ran the trial against my own inclinations, so had no one but myself to blame for being beaten. There is one great advantage the amateur who runs systematically throughout the summer months possesses over the professional, which is, that the former is pulled out nearly every Saturday. From this he derives benefit, and at the s·ame time is able to judge rightly as to the amount of improvement he is making, and whether more or less work is needed to get perfectly fit; whilst the " pro " passes weeks and weeks in a regular steady system of practice without racing, and if his trial proves unsatisfactory the question as to whether this is to be accounted for by too much or too little work may ofttimes be a very difficult one to correctly answer. In conclusion, there is a disadvantage likely to be experienced by those who extend their athletic career over a period of many years, which is, that the change from such violent bodily exercise to the ordinary mode of life is apt, for some time at any rate, to remind the old athlete that he never feels so well now that his running days are over, and also that there are, after all, few successes in life that confer a more healthy pleasure than those won on the cinder-path. RRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTBRS, T.ONDON AND TONBlUDOE.